Dustin Pedroia will get his ovation on Tuesday. He will play his baseball, ending his longest hiatus he has endured without the sport in the post-Tee ball portion of his 27 years on this planet. (That's 27 years, exactly, by the way.) And he will once again attempt to will the Red Sox to a victory.

He feels ready to play, has gotten all the medical clearances, and most likely won't look any different than the addicted-to-winning sparkplug that was last seen trying to limp down to first base with a fractured foot in San Francisco.

That's not the whole story.

It was just more than three weeks ago that Dustin Pedroia was injected with an anxiety that isn't about to leave just because his name is back in the starting lineup. In fact, turning back the trepidation might be Pedroia's greatest feat of all.

The second baseman had stopped by the offices of Dr. Lewis Yocum to get the broken navicular bone on his left foot examined. Suddenly all the trash talk and predictions regarding his beating the odds and returning quicker than the suggested six-week timetable came to a grinding halt.

"I kind or realized how serious it was when I saw Yocum and he said, 'No way [it would be six weeks].' He kind of told me almost three months," said Pedroia. "I'm like 'Geez!' But it got better. He said, 'This is no joke. If you do a subtle movement and it pops you're done.'"

Then came the capper.

The doctor started throwing out other athletes with a comparable injury, citing mostly hockey players (who could usually skate with the ailment), along with Michael Jordan. But then came a name that sent shivers through Pedroia.

"Yocum said Bill Walton did it, he played early and he was done. I [crapped] my pants," Pedroia said. "I'm an NBA fan. I felt like I was done. Then it sunk in that I couldn't mess around."

Up until that moment, he had lived with tunnel vision, dismissing the fact that he was actually a slow healer when coming back from a broken ankle suffered in a football game his freshman year of high school. ("I actually healed faster from this one," he said.)

And with the memories of being able to play through the pain that came with a cracked hamate bone for the final two months of the 2007 season still fresh in his psyche, there was no reason -- up until the visit to Yocum -- that healing history couldn't be made.

Then, just eight days before he ultimately took the field for his first rehab game in Pawtucket, it looked like Yocum's worst-case analysis might be too close for comfort.

Pedroia tried running at Yankee Stadium and felt awful.

"It's been tough," he said prior to Saturday's game with the PawSox at McCoy Stadium. "A week ago when I first ran in New York it didn't feel that good. I was limping really bad and couldn't really run. I stayed with it, had a day off, and when we got to Toronto I felt a lot better. Here I am."

And that's all Pedroia wanted, to be present, fractured foot or not. Still …

"I'm nervous," he said before that first rehab game. "I've sprinted twice."

Then after the two games …

"Tuesday's a different story. I was nervous that I wouldn't be OK physically, but now that I am, we're trying to win games, so I don't really care how I do," Pedroia said. "As long as we win, it doesn't really matter."

And through all the doubts and uncertainty that Pedroia has had to fend off, he is back in the place where he feels most comfortable. There is winning, and then everything else.

Playing through pain doesn't scare the second baseman. Few understood the agony he was experiencing when it came to his right knee prior to the broken foot.

A brace had helped, as had treatment following the Sox' June series in Cleveland. He managed, and then some. Pedroia would hit .500 (24-for-48) with four homers, four stolen bases, and a .561 on-base percentage in the 13 games prior to fouling the ball off of his foot in San Francisco.

Most importantly, in Pedroia's eyes, was the fact the Red Sox went 9-4 during that stretch. They were also three games back of first-place New York, and even with Tampa Bay in the wild card chase.

Since the injury the Red Sox are 23-21, with their second basemen carrying the second-worst fielding percentage (.972) in the American League during that stretch.

It is why the memories of sitting in Yocum's office may still have a place in Pedroia's subconscious as he takes the field Tuesday, but the reality is that those thoughts are no match for what will truly be on the player's mind -- winning.

"We're in a pennant race. I've got to try to get back in there, and I'll figure it out," he said.